Dear Sir,—The enclosed letter is from Father Richard, the Director of a school at Detroit, being on a subject in which the departments both of the Treasury and War are concerned, I take the liberty of enclosing it to yourself as the centre which may unite these two agencies. The transactions which it alludes to took place in the months of December and January preceding my retirement from office, and as I think it possible they may not have been fully placed on the records of the War office, because they were conducted verbally for the most part, I will give a general statement of them as well as my recollection will enable me. In the neighborhood of Detroit (two or three miles from the town) is a farm, formerly the property of one Earnest, a bankrupt Collector. It is now in the possession of the Treasury department, as a pledge for a sum in which he is in default to the government, much beyond the value of the farm. As it is a good one, has proper buildings, and in a proper position for the purpose contemplated, General Dearborne proposed to purchase it for the War department at its real value. Mr. Gallatin thought he should ask the sum for which it was hypothecated. I do not remember the last idea in which we all concurred; but I believe it was that, as the Treasury must, in the end, sell it for what it could get, the War department would become a bidder as far as its real value, and in the meantime would rent it. On this farm we proposed to assemble the following establishments: 1st. Father Richards' school. He teaches the children of the inhabitants of Detroit—but the part of the school within our view was that of the young Indian girls instructed by two French females, natives of the place, who devote their whole time and their own property, which was not inconsiderable, to the care and instruction of Indian girls in carding, spinning, weaving, sewing, and the other household arts suited to the condition of the poor, and as practiced by the white women of that condition. Reading and writing were an incidental part of their education. We proposed that the War department should furnish the farm and the houses for the use of the school gratis, and add $400 a year to the funds, and that the benefits of the Institution should be extended to the boys also of the neighboring tribes, who were to be lodged, fed, and instructed there.
2d. To establish there the farmer at present employed by the United States, to instruct those Indians in the use of the plough and other implements and practices of agriculture, and in the general management of the farm. This man was to labor the farm himself, and to have the aid of the boys through a principal portion of the day, by which they would contract habits of industry, learn the business of farming, and provide subsistence for the whole Institution. Reading and writing were to be a secondary object.
3d. To remove thither the carpenter and smith at present employed by the United States among the same Indians; with whom such of the boys as had a turn for it should work and learn their trades.
This establishment was recommended by the further circumstance that whenever the Indians come to Detroit on trade or other business, they encamp on or about this farm. This would give them opportunities of seeing their sons and daughters, and their advancement in the useful arts—of seeing and learning from example all the operations and process of a farm, and of always carrying home themselves some additional knowledge of these things. It was thought more important to extend the civilized arts, and to introduce a separation of property among the Indians of the country around Detroit than elsewhere, because learning to set a high value on their property, and losing by degrees all other dependence for subsistence, they would deprecate war with us as bringing certain destruction on their property, and would become a barrier for that distant and isolated post against the Indians beyond them. There are beyond them some strong tribes, as the Sacs, Foxes, &c., with whom we have as yet had little connection, and slender opportunities of extending to them our benefits and influence. They are therefore ready instruments to be brought into operation on us by a powerful neighbor, which still cultivates its influence over them by nourishing the savage habits which waste them, rather than by encouraging the civilized arts which would soften, conciliate and preserve them. The whole additional expense to the United States was to be the price of the farm, and an increase of $400 in the annual expenditures for these tribes.
This is the sum of my recollections. I cannot answer for their exactitude in all details, but General Dearborne could supply and correct the particulars of my statement. Mr. Gallatin, too was so often in consultation on the subject, that he must have been informed of the whole plan; and his memory is so much better than mine, that he will be able to make my statement what it should be. Add to this that I think I generally informed yourself of our policy and proceedings in the case, as we went along; and, if I am not mistaken, it was one of the articles of a memorandum I left with you of things still in fieri, and which would merit your attention. I have thought it necessary to put you in possession of these facts, that you might understand the grounds of Father Richards' application, and be enabled to judge for yourself of the expediency of pursuing the plan, or of the means of withdrawing from it with justice to the individuals employed in its execution. How far we are committed with the Indians themselves in this business will be seen in a speech of mine to them, of January 31st, filed in the War office, and perhaps something more may have passed to them from the Secretary of War. Always affectionately yours.
TO DR. CHAPMAN.
Monticello, December 11, 1809.
Sir,—Your favor of November 10th did not come to hand till the 29th of that month. The subject you have chosen for the next anniversary discourse of the Linnean Society, is certainly a very interesting and also a difficult one. The change which has taken place in our climate, is one of those facts which all men of years are sensible of, and yet none can prove by regular evidence, they can only appeal to each other's general observation for the fact. I remember that when I was a small boy, (say 60 years ago,) snows were frequent and deep in every winter—to my knee very often, to my waist sometimes—and that they covered the earth long. And I remember while yet young, to have heard from very old men, that in their youth, the winters had been still colder, with deeper and longer snows. In the year 1772, (37 years ago,) we had a snow two feet deep in the champain parts of this State, and three feet in the counties next below the mountains. That year is still marked in conversation by the designation of "the year of the deep snow." But I know of no regular diaries of the weather very far back. In latter times, they might perhaps be found. While I lived at Washington, I kept a diary, and by recurring to that, I observe that from the winter of 1802-3, to that of 1808-9, inclusive, the average fall of snow of the seven winters was only fourteen and a half inches, and that the ground was covered but sixteen days in each winter on an average of the whole. The maximum in any one winter, during that period, was twenty-one inches fall, and thirty-four days on the ground. The change in our climate is very shortly noticed in the Notes on Virginia, because I had few facts to state but from my own recollections, then only of thirty or thirty-five years. Since that my whole time has been so completely occupied in public vocations, that I have been able to pay but little attention to this subject, and if I have heard any facts respecting it, I made no note of them, and they have escaped my memory. Thus, sir, with every disposition to furnish you with any information in my possession, I can only express my regrets at the entire want of them. Nor do I know of any source in this State, now existing, from which anything on the subject can be derived. Williams, in his History of Vermont, has an essay on the change of climate in Europe, Asia and Africa, and has very ingeniously laid history under contribution for materials. Doctor Williamson has written on the change of our climate, in one of the early volumes of our philosophical transactions. Both of these are doubtless known to you.
Wishing it had been in my power to have been more useful to you, I pray you to accept the assurances of my esteem and respect.